


Close Enough

by phodyl



Series: Wintersday Fic Week 2019 [2]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Best Friends, Gen, Golems, Light Angst, Original Character(s), Snow, Wintersday (Guild Wars), especially when they literally ARE people, golems are people too, original asura character, original human character (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21880732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phodyl/pseuds/phodyl
Summary: After a long day in the snow, dealing with responsibilities that shouldn't have been hers in the first place, Daxxi has found herself in a pretty terrible mood. Coming home to Mara, her best-friend-turned-golem, only made things worse. Daxxi knows the way she's been treating her companion isn't really fair, but how can she possibly keep from snapping, when she failed her friend so terribly?
Series: Wintersday Fic Week 2019 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1575952
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Close Enough

**Author's Note:**

> This is for day 2 of [tyrias-library's](https://tyrias-library.tumblr.com) Wintersday fic week! Technically the prompts are every two days but I decided to do two fics for each, because I felt like it, so the prompt for this is also snow.

Daxxi padded through the path around the Priory, pulling her coat tighter around her shoulders.

“Damn Wintersday,” she grumbled to herself, gently kicking a golem that had stopped in the middle of the path. “Everybody leaving, and I’m stuck here monitoring fucking robotic snowplows. I should be working on something important, but _noooo_ , everyone had to ditch me to go do their stupid holiday shit. This is what I get for taking on a bunch of humans for apprentices, no work ethic, I swear, they just up and--hey, what is your _deal?_ ”

She stopped, looked down at the golem she’d kicked earlier as if she were a disappointed professor and it were a particularly troublesome progeny. She tried nudging it with her foot again, to no avail. 

“ _Ugh_ ,” Daxxi sighed dramatically. “I shouldn’t have to be the one carrying a broken PLOW back up all those damn stairs.” She picked up the golem, shoved it in her pack, and began moving toward the Priory with the small flock of PLOW-10s that were still functioning following behind her. “And yet here I am, doing exactly that. I swear next year I’m gonna make a rule, no leaving or you lose your spot. That’ll teach ‘em, all falling over themselves for a spot in _my_ program and then fucking off to visit their families. Disgusting, just no consistency, no concern for their work...”

She continued on, climbing the steps and grumbling all the way. The responsibility of repairing basic problems with a golem this simple should really be on her students, but at least in her workshop it would be warm and free of the snow presently seeping into her clothing. 

***

“Hey, didn’t think you’d be back for a while,” Mara said as Daxxi opened the door to the workshop. “I’ve been reading about the history of Wintersday. Fascinating stuff, really. I mean, I’ve participated in it all my life, obviously, but the origin is just so wild. Like, did you know that in Cantha they--”

“Mara, I’m sorry, but I’m really not in the mood,” Daxxi snapped. “As if having to trudge through the snow like a damn novice wasn’t bad enough, now I have to fix this stupid PLOW-10 too.”

“I could’ve gone and helped, you know,” she pointed out calmly, the tinny break in her voice showing she was more upset than she let on. Daxxi heard it, knew what it meant--she’d written all of the manual bits of Mara’s code with tedious precision, after all, and vocal inflections just don’t work right through automated copying systems--but right now, as terrible as it sounded, she couldn’t be bothered to care.

“You know I can’t take you out there yet; it’s freezing, there’s snow everywhere, and I still need to update your cold shielding. Plus your circuitry isn’t fully waterproofed yet. The snow would just fry everything.” The asura sighed, rubbing her face with one hand. “Look, I have a lot of work to do right now, and I’m incredibly pissed off, so could you just put yourself in sleep mode or something for now? I need a break.”

“I’m not an idiot, Daxxi. I know you don’t want anyone to know about me. But seriously, what was the damn point of copying me anyway if you were just going to treat me like some--some _thing_ you can order around like any of your other golems?”

“You _are_ ‘some thing,’ Mara,” said the engineer, dropping her bag onto the workshop table and working off her wet clothes. “We’ve been over this; I wasn’t able to pull off consciousness transfer, so you’re just a copy of--of her. You’re not a real person, you’re just a golem that talks the way she did.”

“But I also have all of her memories,” the golem said, “and all her quirks, and interests, and skills. I still _feel_ like I’m Mara, and I have all of the things within me that made me who I was when I was alive. Isn’t that basically the same thing?”

“I don’t have time for your philosophical musings right now. If I don’t fix this golem, Gixx’ll give me an earful.”

Everything was quiet for a while, Daxxi tinkering with the broken PLOW-10 and Mara stewing in her own thoughts. She drummed mechanical fingers quietly against the desk, noting how much different it felt now, how clunky her movements were. She missed her old body more and more as time went on. She hoped she'd get used to it eventually.

“Daxxi?” she tried after about half an hour had passed.

“ _What?_ ”

“Why did you make me, anyway?”

“I am _not_ dealing with this right now. This is ridiculous, you’re just a go--”

“ _Why did you make me_ , Daxxi?”

The asura sighed heavily, intentionally keeping her eyes on her work as she soldered a disconnected wire. 

“Because Mara wanted me to. Because she didn’t want to die, and she thought I could do it. But I couldn’t. I failed her, and now all I have is _you_ instead.”

“Daxxi, I don’t know how to make you understand that I might as well be her. You may not have been able to do a transfer, but a copy--I’m okay with a copy,” Mara insisted.

Daxxi scoffed. “You only say that because you are one.” 

“No, I say that because for as much as it matters, I _am_ Mara, or I’m close enough that I might as well be,” the golem said. She felt like she should be crying; she hated that she couldn’t cry anymore. “And seeing as I think and talk and act like she did, I can say with relative certainty that I’m okay with this. You didn’t fail me. You did exactly what you promised, just in a slightly different way--you kept me around. I’m still here, Daxxi. I’m still me. And you know I’m smart enough to know what’s going on, before you try that ‘only because you are one’ bullshit on me.”

Now she turned back, looking at Mara with a tear-streaked face. The now-golem had the overwhelming urge to hug her, but she knew it would just feel like an unsatisfying imitation for both of them.

“But I--but I wasn’t enough,” Daxxi forced out through choked-down sobs. 

“Oh, honey,” Mara said, in that same tone she always used to use, “you were more than enough. You did good.”

Maybe this Mara was the real thing, and maybe she wasn’t. Right then, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because Daxxi finally got to hear her best friend tell her that she hadn’t let her down. And right now, that was close enough. It had to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this fic! <3
> 
> If you like my writing, kudos and comments are always appreciated. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [ineffablyadumbass,](https://ineffablyadumbass.tumblr.com) or on my gw2-specific blog [commander-passiflora](https://commander-passiflora.tumblr.com) where I post about updates and suchlike


End file.
